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10,000 civil servants join tsunami drill as Hong Kong ramps up emergency response capabilities after flood of Covid-19 criticism
- Drill, code-named ‘Touch Down 1’, involved about 5 per cent of the government’s workforce from all 77 bureaus and departments
- Hong Kong leader John Lee says interdepartmental exercise went smoothly and its impact on public services was minimal
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About 10,000 Hong Kong civil servants joined a tsunami evacuation drill on Thursday, in a largest of its kind exercise designed to ramp up the government’s emergency response capabilities after widespread criticism over its handling of the coronavirus crisis.
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The drill, code-named “Touch Down 1”, involved about 5 per cent of the government’s workforce from all 77 bureaus and departments. Among them, 900 civil service personnel were called out to various sites to coordinate responses.
“The ‘tsunami-like’ fifth wave [of Covid-19 infections] exacerbated the problems. That’s why we need to have the ability to mobilise, say 10,000 people, to solve an issue timely and accurately before it gets worse,” Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu told his colleagues who were called out to attend a simulated briefing in North Point.
He said the interdepartmental drill went smoothly and its impact on public services was minimal.
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